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User: PvtVoid

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Comments · 1,142

  1. Re:Controversial because? on Bill Gates Still Trying To Buy Some Common Core Testing Love · · Score: -1, Troll

    Common Core appears to have become controversial primarily because the conservative media told us it is. Apparently they were hoping that the new standard would also find a way to further reduce teachers' salaries and career opportunities, and as it did not do that it needed to be destroyed at all cost.

    It's more than that. The Conservative establishment has a vested interest in promoting ignorance -- creationism, global warming denial, abstinence-only sex education, poor nutrition, failed economic ideas, American exceptionalism, whitewashing of slavery and genocide, Christian dogma, the list is long. This is referred to as "local control": whatever whackjob ideas are predominant in your backward little community take precedence over what's being taught by all of those commie liberal college professors. The sad thing is that the teachers' unions are perfectly happy to jump into a disastrous alliance with these insane ideologues out of naked self-interest and terror that a few of them might finally be outed for, you know, doing a bad job. And children suffer.

  2. Re:Won't know any better on Will Robot Cars Need Windows? · · Score: 1

    My dog arrives safely at his destination and won't become a 50lb projectile that could kill both of us in an accident.

    You can also get nice harnesses that clip in like a seatbelt and keep the dog from being a projectile. And he can still stick his head out the window.

  3. Re:Some end users do want video on Firefox 38 Arrives With DRM Required To Watch Netflix · · Score: 1

    Netflix is broken, not the browser. If Netflix insists on using something that cannot be implemented in a safe and reasonable way by the Mozilla Foundation, then it is only fair that Netflix should solve this themselves.

    I'm sure they'll get right on that.

  4. Re:Typo: Digital Rights Management on Firefox 38 Arrives With DRM Required To Watch Netflix · · Score: 4, Funny

    Unlike all those GNU fans who, who seem to complain the fact that Firefox actually needs a VGA display to work.

    I for one can't wait until Lynx includes an ASCII-art Netflix plugin. Pretty please?

  5. Re:Typo: Digital Rights Management on Firefox 38 Arrives With DRM Required To Watch Netflix · · Score: 1, Funny

    That's right, because you wouldn't want anybody to be able to watch Netflix on your browser. Somebody might want to use it. I mean, what would be next: users wanting http: support?

  6. Re:Yes. on Will Robot Cars Need Windows? · · Score: 1

    And in an accident like that where the doors are jammed shut due to damage, how exactly are the passengers supposed to extricate themselves from the wrecked vehicle?

    Not having your head smushed like a watermelon in the first place would be a good start, IMO.

  7. Re:Yes. on Will Robot Cars Need Windows? · · Score: 1

    Cars seems to get by well structurally with windows already anyway, why bother redesigning them?

    Really? Imagine how much safer a car with a windowless unibody passenger compartment would be.
     

  8. Re:Yes. on Will Robot Cars Need Windows? · · Score: 3, Informative

    The passengers in a plane do not need windows but clearly because planes have windows at considerable cost to design properly (remember the Dehavilland Comet?) there's clearly a want for them to be there.

    Windowless planes are coming. And they will be awesome.

  9. Life Imitates Idiocracy on California Gets Past the Yuck Factor With "Toilet To Tap" Water Recycling · · Score: 2

    "Water? You mean like from the toilet?"

  10. Re:As a father with a daughter on Psychologist: Porn and Video Game Addiction Are Leading To 'Masculinity Crisis' · · Score: 0

    ... most of the comments here scare the sh-t out of me.

    No shit.

    In a purely operational sense, it actually makes sense to support the MGTOW movement, since these people are at least giving up women altogether, instead of continuing to inflict themselves on them. Let the basement-bound wretches have their little fantasy of actually being dashing fighter pilots. As long as it keeps them in the basement, it's worth it.

  11. Re:nature will breed it out on Psychologist: Porn and Video Game Addiction Are Leading To 'Masculinity Crisis' · · Score: -1

    the workplace overtly discriminates against men

    Right. By paying them more, for example. Or by giving them promotions ahead of women. Or denying women even remotely adequate maternity leave.

  12. Re:- or we are just very small? on Shape of the Universe Determined To Be Really, Really Flat · · Score: 2

    The Big Bang didn't happen at a single point.

    Well, actually we don't know that. That's an extrapolation based on math which breaks down if you get too close to the moment of the big bang. (If 'moment' is even the right word.)

    No, we do know that, from the Cosmic Microwave Background. The early universe has been directly observed to be extremely homogeneous.

  13. Re:- or we are just very small? on Shape of the Universe Determined To Be Really, Really Flat · · Score: 1

    The age of the universe is known, so if it started out in the big bang as a single point, it can only be a limited number of lightyears across, right?

    The Big Bang didn't happen at a single point.

  14. Re:Let's just humour them on Shape of the Universe Determined To Be Really, Really Flat · · Score: 2

    As for the origin of the big bang, it is only a single point in the observable universe.

    No, no, no. The Big Bang was not an explosion emanating from a point. The Big Bang happened everywhere at once. It had no center.

  15. Dating App on Apple's Plans For Your DNA · · Score: 3, Funny

    Oh, man, that would make for an awesome dating app! Swipe right, and it renders your potential children.

  16. Re:Nay Sayers Are As bad as the Hypers on No, NASA Did Not Accidentally Invent Warp Drive · · Score: 1

    Please watch this Feynman video ten times.

    Thank you.

  17. Re:One Criterion Missing on No, NASA Did Not Accidentally Invent Warp Drive · · Score: 1

    We do know things about the world. Nothing is absolute in science, but some things come very, very close. Conservation of momentum is one of those.
    Yes, it is. And the drive conserves momentum quite fine. Why do you claim it does not, when all the theories about how it works clearly state: it does???

    I love this: when somebody complains that the theory of operation is total gibberish, the response is: "But we don't need a theory! Experiment trumps theory!" Then when somebody suggests that one needs much, much stronger evidence before you should even consider tossing out conservation of momentum, one of the most basic principles of physics, the response is "But they have a theory that shows it doesn't violate conservation of momentum".

    Rinse and repeat.

    I have always been kind of astonished that a group of self-selected tech geeks would repeatedly display such abysmal scientific understanding. Global warming? Not nearly enough evidence for that. Decades of studies and a broad scientific consensus are still not enough to draw an actionable conclusion. But two or three crackpots claim they have a warp drive, and everybody is lining up for their tickets for Alpha Centauri.

    Very sad.

  18. Re:Nay Sayers Are As bad as the Hypers on No, NASA Did Not Accidentally Invent Warp Drive · · Score: 4, Funny

    Because liberals hate actual science - new inventions their leadership doesn't control (the majority of billionaires in the world are liberal because it is the new Christianity to control idiots) are decried. This one comes with a double-whammy because not only is it an incredibly disruptive technology, it is also something created entirely from theory to initial testing by a guy in his garage - the very idea of such a person existing goes against the idea that people need huge government research groups and megacorps leading the charge because science is just so overwhelming that individuals can't do it themselves anymore - which is the entire basis of most of the liberal leadership power base. But be assured, if they can figure out a way to drive the inventor to suicide or just wait for him to fade away to get their hands on the tech themselves we'll have asteroid-mining within the year.

    Damn. Our evil plot is exposed.

  19. Re:One Criterion Missing on No, NASA Did Not Accidentally Invent Warp Drive · · Score: 1

    No. These tests prove that the device is real, and that it produces force.

    They don't prove any such thing. All they prove is that a bunch of questionable researchers claimed to measure a marginally significant effect, and have been hyping the fuck out of it. Scientific openness is not equivalent credulously accepting the claims of every whacko and charlatain who makes a claim, just because it "hasn't been disproven".

    We do know things about the world. Nothing is absolute in science, but some things come very, very close. Conservation of momentum is one of those. You don't toss that aside without utterly overwhelming evidence. There is no such evidence here.

  20. Re:This again? on New Test Supports NASA's Controversial EM Drive · · Score: 2, Insightful

    You might have missed high temp super conductivity entirely then. The phenomenon was measured and replicated in many labs - but it was at least a few years before any plausible theory came out - and 20 years on we do not have firm agreement on the cause.

    Poor comparison. High-Tc superconductivity was a demonstration of a known phenomenon (zero resistance current) under new physical circumstances. A better comparison might have been the photoelectric effect, which really had no explanation under the then-known laws of electromagnetism. The explanation for the photoelectric effect in fact did require a deep and radical revision of the basic laws of physics: Quantum Mechanics. Sometimes this happens.

    These guys have not measured something which clearly requires such a revision of physics, yet they are full of breathless claims about its significance. Red flags all over the place.

  21. Re:This again? on New Test Supports NASA's Controversial EM Drive · · Score: 2

    "If I were to peer-review a paper on this, I would insist on a plausible physical explanation for the claimed measurement." That's stupid. Providing proof that something interesting is happening and repeatable is viable science all on its own.

    If they simply wrote a paper saying "we noticed an anomalous force in this experimental setup, and we don't understand why", then nobody would have a problem with it. They're not doing that. They are claiming that it can be used as a reactionless propulsion system, a claim which is entirely incredible without a solid physical theory to justify it.

  22. Re:This again? on New Test Supports NASA's Controversial EM Drive · · Score: 1, Troll

    That's just silly. The people reporting this observable phenomenon do not claim to understand why this happens - in fact the point of the article is that we should strive to understand why this works.

    They're measuring an anomalous force in an electromagnetic cavity. That's a measurement, a concrete fact. They're claiming that they'll be able to make a starship with it. That's beyond any credibility. It's totally delusional.

  23. Re:This again? on New Test Supports NASA's Controversial EM Drive · · Score: 1

    The inventor knows.
    He formulated the theory of the device. And actually it is pretty easy to grasp for a layman. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E...

    Have you actually read the paper? Hint: there's a very, very good reason why it is not in a peer-reviewed journal.

  24. Re:This again? on New Test Supports NASA's Controversial EM Drive · · Score: -1, Troll

    Actually, the test shows that is not fairies flying out of the engineer's butt, but rather invisible unicorns pushing the unit. Those tricky magical bastards....

    This is way more believable than the answer they give.

  25. Re:This again? on New Test Supports NASA's Controversial EM Drive · · Score: -1, Troll

    That is what peer review, replication of results and further study are for...and I am biting my lip not to add "dumbass" to the end of that sentence.

    If I were to peer-review a paper on this, I would insist on a plausible physical explanation for the claimed measurement. The burden of proof is on them: they are making a truly extraordinary claim, one that, if true, would entail revising all of physics from its very foundation.

    When somebody sounds like a total fucking crackpot, they almost always are.